Film

A highly interesting look into the life and workings of an award-winning Japanese sushi restaurant. The behind the scenes look is simply fascinating. I would give it another star. However, towards the end, the documentary loses some of its magical quality and begins to come across as something of an advertisement.

Searching for Sugar Man is a documentary about the artist (Sixto) Rodriguez who released two unsuccessful albums in Detroit in the early 1970s and subsequently faded away from the music business back into what is described as abject poverty. Unbeknownst to him, however, his music became hugely popular in South Africa where his fans were under the impression that he was dead. This documentary retells the story of how two of his South African fans tracked him down in the late 90s.

Surfing movies are invariably great, albeit with not much of a plot. This one does have a semblance of a plot but is let down by the screenplay and direction. However, eventually I was well entertained.

+1 for stunning visuals
+1 for Ms. Shue

A fun movie with a pretty unique setting for a decent plot. Some bits are a li'l cheesy and I generally tend to find John C. Reilly annoying, but his voice work in Wreck it Ralph was good.

Bonus point for a lot of out-of-the-box thought.

Religulous is a documentary comedy (odd classification for sure) in which the comedian and talk-show host, Bill Maher, explores the three Abrahamic religions and their effects on the world today. It's a fun watch and effectively a platform for Maher to air his views by introducing us to the kooks and frauds of the religious world.

While it's cool to see something come out of Iceland, this really was dull drivel. Stay away.

A movie that could have been far, far better if it had a better cast. Emma Watson was singularly poor. While I didn't think that she or any of the Harry Potter cast could ever plumb new depths, apparently, they have been reached. The screenplay and direction were just about par.

A bonus star for music and literary references.

I did not begin watching this movie with honourable intentions. While my primary goal was satisfied reasonably early, I did end up watching the rest of the film. The Sessions had many of the qualities required to become this decade's My Left Foot or Le scaphandre et le papillon. However, there really wasn't enough conflict in the script for this to happen. Helen Hunt was quite brilliant. However, the rest of the cast, while competent, did not really hit the upper percentiles.

Killing Them Softly is a gangster movie with delusions of complexity. While I suppose that it's clever to correlate a gangwar with the economic crisis from 2008, repeatedly hitting the viewer with this message makes the entire effort simply annoying. Good acting, semi-decent plot, bad direction. That said, I can watch just about anything with Brad Pitt in it.

The setting was good, the music was classical, and the acting was mostly well above par. However, the script was lacking, the characters lacked depth, and the plot hurried along too quickly towards a very abrupt end. It was enjoyably different. Unfortunately, I do not expect it to be memorable.